Tapestry (episode)
After being attacked on an away mission, Picard dies and meets Q in the afterlife. Q offers Picard the chance to change a crucial moment in his history, prevent mistakes he made in life, but Picard learns that those mistakes are what made him who he is. Summary On an away mission, Picard is shot in the center of the chest, causing his cardiac implant to malfunction, rendering him clinically dead. In sickbay, as Dr. Crusher and her medical team try to save him, Picard has a near-death experience where Q appears as God, telling him he is indeed dead. Q explains that the blast from a Lenarian tetryon beam caused Picard's death, and offers him a chance to go back into time and choose not to fight the Nausicaans that caused the injury that made his bionic heart necessary. Soon Picard is put back in time where he is fresh out of Starfleet Academy. He is waiting for his first assignment at a starbase with his two closest friends, Corey and Marta. After two Nausicaans cheat Corey in a game of dom-jot, he vows revenge. Initially Picard helps Corey, however he now makes the decision to walk away from the fight, betraying his two friends. Picard is then returned to the present, where he is a mere junior lieutenant on board the ''Enterprise''-D, with Worf as his immediate commander. He soon discovers from Commander Riker that he is not lined up for a promotion any time soon because he "just doesn't take risks" and "doesn't stand out." When Q returns, he explains that, although the injury nearly killed Picard, it also helped him realize how fragile life could be, and thus made him more willing to take risks and make his mark on the universe. Picard asks him to let him reverse the changes he made, deciding that it was worth the recent incident to allow what originally happened to him to happen. Picard decides to die rather then live life as an average, dreary man. As he is run through by one of the Nausicaans, he begins to laugh, knowing history has been set right, and is shown again in the present, lying on the biobed he was placed on after his injury, laughing as he comes to, his bionic heart reactivated. Picard postulates afterward that the near-death experience was merely another test by Q, but does not speculate whether or not the injury was Q's work. Memorable Quotes "Welcome to the afterlife, Jean-Luc. You're dead." : - Q''' to Picard "Q, what is going on?" "I told you. You're dead, this is the afterlife, and I'm God." "You are not God!" "Blasphemy! You're lucky I don't cast you out or smite you or something." : - '''Picard and Q''' "I refuse to believe that the afterlife is run by you; the universe is not so badly designed." : - '''Picard to Q "My only regret is having to die and finding you here." : - Picard to Q "Flowers! Is there a John-Luck Pickard here?" : - Q''' "There were many things in my youth that I'm not proud of... they were loose threads... untidy parts of myself that I wanted to remove. But when I pulled on one of those threads... I unravelled the tapestry of my life." : - '''Picard "I can't live out my days as that person! That man is bereft of passion... and imagination! That is not who I am! I would rather die as the man I was than live the life I just saw." : - Picard to Q Background Information * This episode marks the first appearance of the Nausicaans. * LeVar Burton (Geordi La Forge) does not appear on screen but has one brief voiceover line. * Ronald D. Moore called the story "one of the best things I wrote and one of TNG's finest episodes". http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/6952/ron14.txt Links and References Guest Stars *John de Lancie as Q *Ned Vaughn as Cortin Zweller *J.C. Brandy as Marta Batanides *Clint Carmichael as Nausicaan *Rae Norman as Penny Muroc *Clive Church as Maurice Picard *Marcus Nash as Young Picard References ''Ajax'', USS; Bonestell Recreation Facility; compressed tetryon beam; dom-jot; Starbase Earhart; Halloway, Thomas; inaprovaline; isocortex; Lenarians; lieutenant junior grade; magna-spanner; Milika III; Morikin VII; Narth; Nausicaan; Nausicaan sword; Rigel; Selar; tetryon Category:TNG episodes de:Willkommen im Leben nach dem Tode nl:Tapestry